Zeus's authoritative voice rang out from the heavens. "Stand down, Ares! Apollo! Without my command, no divine being may participate in the war of the mortal world."
With the God-King Zeus's intervention, Ares was unwilling but had no choice but to stop his continued assault on Troy.
"Hmph. Withdraw!!"
Seeing Ares lead his army away, the Amazon queen Penthesilea, who had at some unknown point already arrived on the city walls, let out a breath of relief.
Just moments ago, her father god had sent her a message demanding she act from within to stab Apollo in the back, then open Troy's city gates and let his army in.
Penthesilea had no desire to be a traitor.
Even though she stepped onto this battlefield not for anything like justice, but for revenge.
But she also had her own personal line she would not cross, as well as her pride as a warrior.
Yet on one side were her allies, and on the other side was a command from her father god.
If both sides kept fighting, Penthesilea would be in a very difficult position.
At the same time, on the other side, after withdrawing, Ares did not go to the Greek camp first.
Instead, he went up to Mount Olympus.
He went to report to the great god Zeus about being shot and wounded by Apollo.
But just like in the myth, when he defied Zeus's command and chose to help Troy and nearly destroyed Greece.
This time, though he helped Greece, he still defied Zeus's command.
In response, Zeus gave him the same concluding words as when he was stabbed by Diomedes.
"Among all my many children, you are the one I dislike the most.
You always defy my commands and insist on going against me. This is the punishment you deserve. Ares!"
Never mind that the one who injured Ares this time was Apollo, who was among the more favored among Zeus's many children.
Even when the mortal Diomedes wounded Ares, Zeus showed him no favoritism whatsoever.
Let alone now.
Hearing his words, Ares was furious and felt Zeus was extremely biased.
But not daring to question the dignity of the King of the Gods,
He returned to the surface carrying a load of negative emotions.
And at this point he finally remembered, beyond storming Troy, there was something more important he almost forgot about.
Which was to recruit that shining dragon warrior for his own use.
In the Greek allied camp...
With Ares's arrival, all the heroes came forward to welcome this war god.
Yet King Agamemnon's heart was not pleased by this powerful reinforcement's arrival.
The other party's coming was a bit like a cuckoo taking over another bird's nest.
And when Ares boldly sat down on the throne that originally belonged to Agamemnon, Night, who was seated alongside Agamemnon in the heroes' seats, looked up at this divine being radiating a divine aura as deep and vast as an ocean from an entirely muscular build.
His inner feelings were incredibly eventful.
At this moment he was completely churning inside.
Even when the Eris disguised as the Celtic three goddess Mach nearly forced herself on him, he still managed to stay calm.
But when he saw the war god appear on the Greek side, he completely lost it, and even felt an urge to curse out loud.
Wait.
Brother, you walked into the wrong story, did you not?
'As the big brother on the Trojan side who single-handedly challenged all the Greek gods, how did you end up coming to Greece's side?
If you came to Greece, then who goes to help Troy? Is there even a war left to fight?'
From when Ares descended to when the reports from the battlefield came back, in just a short few dozen minutes, the entire situation had already completely changed.
It was clearly just one morning.
The Trojan side that was holding such a dominant advantage, by the time the battle reports reached Night, had already turned into Troy being reduced to a single isolated city again.
If Apollo had not stepped in at the critical moment...
Troy would probably already be completely destroyed by now.
Night: "..."
Though he knew his own presence caused deviations in the history of the myth, and he was not entirely unable to accept a bit of butterfly effect.
But when his own camp's big brother got poached by the enemy side.
It was like spending a huge amount of resources in a card game, making five sacrifices to summon Sky Dragon, and then watching the other side steal it immediately.
The name traitor dragon was well deserved.
Whoever played it got destroyed.
And the war god's somewhat ruggedly powerful face at this moment, in Night's eyes, looked incomparably like the face of a Red Eyes traitor dragon.
This was bad.
Extremely, seriously bad.
Already known Trojan-side divine-level combat power: war god Ares, goddess of love Aphrodite, god of light Apollo.
The enemy side had the great god Zeus and the queen Hera at the head, and even the goddess of wisdom and war Athena providing protection.
Setting aside the God-King and queen who basically never fought directly, on the surface Greece also had Athena to deal with.
Under Athena's blessing, Diomedes nearly achieved the achievement of killing two gods, and the two he nearly killed were both members of the twelve Olympians.
It had to be said that the war god Ares was disgracefully awful in this regard.
Forget about not being able to beat Athena, you could not even beat a human, Diomedes, who received her blessing.
That was truly disgraceful.
But as disgraced as he was, he was still the Trojan side's divine-level combat power.
Now that he went to Greece,
Troy was down to just a handful of scraggly cats.
Night's active presence in Greece during this period, while successfully flipping Achilles to the other side, plus Odysseus who through butterfly effect went to prison early, combined still could not compare to the pain of losing one war god.
At this moment he almost could not catch his breath.
He had quite the feeling of being driven to death by useless teammates.
And at this moment the war god
Ares suddenly sought out Night. "Descendant of the dragon-slayer Cratos! Hero Griffith! Are you willing to accept my blessing and obtain even greater power?!"
The war god's blessing...
This was not a pure gift like Apollo's blessing.
Because the war god was constantly searching among Greece for powerful warriors to use for himself, the name was not an unfamiliar one to Greek heroes.
Many powerful humans after receiving the war god's blessing would draw out the potential within their body and obtain even greater strength.
But this also required bearing a drop of the war god's blood.
A brand was placed within the body, becoming something close to a slave of the war god.
Ahem, of course on the surface one could not call it a slave.
It was called a brave warrior who fought for him.
Ares's power was not so easily obtained.
And precisely because of this special nature of the blessing, the fact that Ares opened his mouth and revealed almost no effort to conceal his personal motives made the heroes' hearts slightly startled.
Griffith was a follower of the moon goddess.
A divine being like Ares actually wanted to bestow a blessing upon him?
Hearing his words, Diomedes frowned.
There was a time when Ares wanted to give him the blessing too, but unwilling to serve Ares and sell his soul, he ultimately chose to devote himself to Athena.
Athena also helped powerful and brave warriors she appreciated, but would make no demands or expect repayment from mortals.
From Diomedes's perspective, rather than believing in Ares, it was better to switch over and believe in Athena alongside him.
If Ares himself were not standing right there, he would already want to introduce Night to just how wonderful his respected, beautiful, and powerful goddess Athena was right now.
Ares? Not trustworthy at all!
.
.
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(End of the Chapter)